Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Members, we welcome to the Committee Mr Oliver Wilkinson, the interim chairperson of the Victims and Survivors Service (VSS), and Ms Margaret Bateson, the interim chief executive officer of the VSS. You are both very welcome. Would you like to give us some comments before we get into the question session?

Mr Oliver Wilkinson (Victims and Survivors Service): You have had our report, so I do not propose to go through it in any detail. I will make a few points in order to place the report in context. First, it is about a year since I first came before the Committee, when I had just joined the board of the Victims and Survivors Service. It has been quite a challenging year in that, to put it fairly bluntly, we have had to get our own house in order. There were many problems in the organisation to do with how we were perceived to be doing the job we were tasked to do. We had two very critical reports, setting out a long series of recommendations that we had to address. I come here today and say confidently that we have addressed our responsibility. We still have work to do, but we are a more confident organisation, and we are providing the services that I believe we are expected to provide. We are doing it in a timely and efficient fashion, and, as a result of that, I believe that our relationships with victims, survivors and the many groups that we fund throughout the community have significantly improved.

Secondly, on the last occasion we were here — about October — you, Chair, and other members asked some hard questions about funding for the organisation. You may recall that our funding had reduced and there still was an expectation that we would provide efficient and effective services to victims and survivors. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that, shortly after that, we received word that additional funding was coming to the organisation. We are currently working very hard to get that money out to the people who need it.

At a time when there are serious financial constraints in our community, which we all know about, I am very pleased that additional funding has been made available to our organisation for the 2015-16 year to enable us to provide services on a much more solid and sound footing for the victims, survivors and groups that we fund. So, we are looking forward to a good year, during which we will, hopefully, use the money we have been given, wisely, and, at the same time, engage in hard conversations with many of the groups we fund to make sure that they are doing all they can and should be doing for, and on behalf of, victims and survivors. I have no doubt that that is going to be a positive engagement with them. We have excellent groups out there doing marvellous work, and we have a great deal of respect for them.

Finally, we have been greatly assisted over the past year by the staff in the commission who have worked very closely with us and by the staff in the Department. I put on record our thanks to both for the way in which they have sought to work in partnership with us to make sure that, collectively, we are doing the best we can for people in need in our community. I will leave it at that and invite questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Oliver, thank you very much for those remarks. I acknowledge that you chose, very openly, to begin your remarks by acknowledging these two reports, which, you said, are very critical of the service. I want to respond by saying that one of the reports makes it very clear that one of the primary reasons that the VSS did not get off to a good start was a failure by the Department to put a board in place in sufficient time, and with sufficient depth of quality of membership, to give the strategic direction that the board appeared to lack at the beginning. I am not mentioning this because I am trying to start a slanging match between the VSS and the Department; that is in the past. Let us look at where we are today. You are on the board. How many other members are on the board?

Mr Wilkinson: There are two other members on the board. One member resigned, for personal reasons, back in August, I think, last year. We are very hopeful that four additional members will be appointed to our board, shortly. That will certainly add considerably to our strength. That is much needed.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): For how long have you been saying, "I hope to be joined by new members of the board shortly"?

Mr Wilkinson: We would like to have had seven or eight members from the outset. That has not been possible, but it is now.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): That is a diplomatic answer, Oliver; but I will ask it again: for how long have you been waiting, with a reasonable expectation, for additional members to be appointed?

Mr Wilkinson: Since I joined the board, which was about 15 months ago.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Fifteen months. Have you asked why there is an ongoing delay?

Mr Wilkinson: We have constantly had conversations with the Department, which, in fairness, has been working with us on the issue. I do not wish to be overly critical of the departmental officials we have worked with, and who I have felt have been genuine and honest in trying to address the problem with us.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Has it created a gap in your expectation, between what you thought you would be doing in your role on the board and what you have had to do through necessity over the last 15 months?

Mr Wilkinson: Not really, Chair. Given the challenge that the organisation had, we needed to have a small group of people who were prepared to give a considerable amount of time. All three of us have honestly tried to do that. I will say on behalf of my two colleagues that we have spent way beyond the hours that might be expected trying to ensure that what we think is a good organisation and one that we have passion for can be much better. We have given the time to try to develop the organisation. It would have been better if we had had more people to share the load, but it has not stopped us from doing what needed to be done.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Given the well-publicised criticism that the VSS has come under, perhaps, as this is a formal session, it is only right to give you an opportunity to put on record your motivation for doing what you do.

Mr Wilkinson: I have been around in the survivor field for quite a few years, from my initial work in Victim Support and now in the Victims and Survivors Service. It is something that I have had an interest in for many years, as, I am quite sure, many other people in the room have had. I feel that I have a contribution to make, but it is a contribution with others. The task is much bigger than me and much bigger than the three of us. Hopefully, it will be better managed with the additional members that, I understand, we should have very shortly.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I would like to move on to the finance; this may be one for Margaret. Refresh our memories, Margaret, on a 2014-15 financial year that was pretty much a roller coaster in terms of your funding streams.

Ms Margaret Bateson (Victims and Survivors Service): Yes, the 2014-15 budget certainly provided a difficult context. Our opening budget was confirmed in May 2014 as £11·685 million. We then bid for further funding in the June monitoring but did not get any additional funding. Our budget was reduced to £10 million at that point. We went through a difficult period in which we had to stop any contractual obligations not yet entered into. We then made bids in October and January and received £1·3 million in each of those monitoring rounds. Our budget position now is £12·6 million, which is roughly comparable to the £12·8 million we spent the previous year.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): However, because it was going up and down, there were situations in which individuals and groups who had a reasonable expectation that they would receive support from the VSS had to be told, "You tick all the boxes and meet our criteria, but we have no money in the bank." How many groups and individuals lost out because of that?

Ms Bateson: Under the victim support programme, nine organisations applied for funding and were assessed by the independent assessment panel. Of those nine, eight were approved or partially approved, and one was deferred pending a corporate governance review. On the individual needs programme, the VSS board had to take the difficult decision to try to prioritise needs. This is quite a complex thing to do given the differing needs within the victims sector. At that time, we had just opened the schemes to carers and those with ongoing chronic pain needs, specifically the seriously injured. There were around 2,000 bereaved and a number of injured who we were not able to offer support to under the individual needs programme.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): There were nine organisations and around 2,000 bereaved. Had you known at the outset that you would end up with £12·6 million, would those nine organisations and 2,000 bereaved have been catered for?

Ms Bateson: The 2,000 bereaved would have been catered for, and they have been. The bereaved received an award of £200 in December, when we found out about October monitoring, and an additional £200 in January when we found out about January monitoring. The nine organisations are unlikely to have received that support in this financial year because the victim support programme budget is still set at just over £6 million.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Take me back to the £200. Would those individuals have been used to receiving £400?

Ms Bateson: In the past, the bereaved would have been eligible for two schemes: education and training, or respite break. The respite break was £200 per adult and £150 per child. The average respite break was about £450 across everyone. This year, because we knew we had a budget of only £400 for the bereaved, we gave flexibility so that, instead of saying that it must be used on education and training or on a respite break, we said, "You have told us that your needs are home heating, complementary therapies or a respite break".

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Before Christmas, you sent out £200, and then, because you got more money from the Department, you sent out another £200.

Ms Bateson: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Presumably, you would have preferred to have sent out the £400 in one sum. Did anybody contact you when they got the second £200 allocation?

Ms Bateson: Any bereaved?

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): When you sent out the second £200, did anybody contact you and say, "I have already got my £200"?

Ms Bateson: Yes. It is hard to tell exactly what causes peaks in our front-line delivery, but you will see from our telephone management information that we managed quite well in October, November and December. We got it under control, we knew what resources we needed and we had our systems in place. In January, our phone calls went over 2,000 in the month, and we started to struggle at that point.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Why did they go over 2,000?

Ms Bateson: It is hard to directly link it, but I suspect that individuals were saying, "Is this another £200? Can I spend it?" We spent a while trying to get the wording right. We engaged with the Commission for Victims and Survivors to ensure that that was clear, but remember that, in August, we had to reduce awards and cancel some awards. People are anxious, and, when they receive a letter, they just want someone at the end of the phone to say, "Yes, it is OK. This is another £200".

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So, a significant number of people thought that they needed to check whether that was an additional £200 or whether there had been an administrative error and whether, if they spend the second £200, you would come looking it back.

Ms Bateson: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Is there any more certainty in this financial year?

Ms Bateson: In the coming financial year, we have an opening budget position of £13·245 million. This is the highest budget that has ever been allocated to the Victims and Survivors Service. We are still undergoing discussions internally on exactly how it will be allocated for the year, but we know that, for the victim support programme, nine letters of offer were on hold. At the moment, we are carrying out pre-contract checks on each organisation, and those reports will go to the VSS board on 18 March for a decision. The organisations that have the correct corporate governance structures in place will receive funding from 1 April. Under the individual needs programme, we do not anticipate making dramatic changes to the eligibility criteria, and, likewise, in the VSS, I think that we pretty much have a structure that is the bare minimum that we need. There is unlikely to be any significant changes in staffing, albeit that we will be moving office premises next year.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I am sure that members will want to talk about that. I will finish for now, Margaret, with this. You said that, last year, your budget opened at, I think, £11·685 million but dropped to £10 million. It is opening this year at around £13 million. Can you guarantee the Committee that that figure will not drop in the way it did last year, from £11 million to £10 million?

Ms Bateson: I do not think that that is a guarantee that the VSS can give. The budget is allocated by the Department.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): So, if it dropped last year, it could drop this year.

Ms Bateson: I think that it is a question for the Department.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): We will ask it shortly.

Mr Spratt: Thanks, Oliver and Margaret for your presentation. I appreciate your frankness. Things have been turned around dramatically. Margaret, you and your staff have done very well to turn that around, given the complaints that we had before the reports came out. They now seem to have dried up. None of the organisations, or anything else, is coming to us with a list of problems. You have turned it around, and that is down to hard work by the board, you and your staff. I will ask you a couple of things. I cannot remember the exact number, but I think there were about 48 recommendations in the original report. Was it 48?

Ms Bateson: Seventy.

Mr Spratt: Well, I know that quite a lot of the 70 had been implemented the last time you were with us. Others had been partially implemented. Have those recommendations, all of which were accepted I think, been implemented in some form?

Ms Bateson: They have all been implemented in some form; but, just to be clear, they have not been implemented in full in all cases. There is a total of 19 outstanding recommendations, which sounds like a lot, but a number of them relate to multiple areas. For example, five or six recommendations relate to monitoring and evaluation, and likewise to the assessment process. Those 19 outstanding recommendations have been brought forward and relate to three key areas, namely the strength of the Victims and Survivors Service (VSS) board, monitoring and evaluation of the programmes, and, thirdly, assessment of individual needs, previously the individual needs' review. They are the three areas; they have not just been hidden away. They have been taken forward in an open process. They are on our business plan for 2015-16, because they are longer-term areas of work. The Department is also taking the lead in a co-design process to improve services, which involves us, the Department, the commission, the groups and individuals.

Mr Spratt: Oliver, I think you said that the Department and officials were working well together. There is very clear evidence that such is the case. Certainly, to my knowledge, you seem to have been liaising regularly, and, if there are problems, you are resolving them at a fairly early stage. It is good to hear that, because I think that there were issues originally with previous reports and stuff like that. Margaret, are there any positive moves in respect of your own position as interim chief executive?

Mr Wilkinson: As a board, we are consulting on the job description and what the responsibilities of the post should be. We are working as board members, but also in consultation with the Department and, shortly, with the commission. We could not rush it, simply because there was a further substantial report being completed by RSM McClure Watters, which roughly sets out the plan of action for the next few years. We wanted to get that report in our hands and see the implications for the organisation before appointing someone and then finding that we had to make significant changes to their job description, re-advertise or whatever. Now that we have the RSM McClure Watters report, we are beginning the process to recruit a new chief executive.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Would it be possible for us to have a copy of that report?

Mr Wilkinson: Yes, it is the property of the commission, but it has been shared around, so I would imagine that it is freely available.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Thank you. Sorry, Jimmy.

Mr Spratt: Does it make recommendations?

Ms Bateson: Yes. It was published by the Commission for Victims and Survivors just last week, and it makes strategic and operational recommendations. The idea is that we will use the incoming financial year and take our time to do things properly. There are recommendations for the victim support programme.

There are two key ones. The first is for a more strategic allocation of funding, based on a needs analysis and a gap analysis to ensure that services are located in the areas where the need is. Then, on the individual needs programme, there are two key recommendations, one being that we pilot a caseworker approach over the next financial year. We have listened to individuals who tell us that they do not like ringing the service and getting a different person each time, so we will try to align individuals to caseworkers, not just in the VSS but in the sector and in the groups. The second key recommendation is that we pilot a personalised budget approach. It is about offering more flexibility to victims. Last year, there was criticism about having to fit into boxes — a respite break or education and training. You would have a personalised budget, and the caseworker would work with you on an individual basis to identify your exact needs. We are working with the Commission for Victims and Survivors on that now.

Mr Spratt: I assume that you are working closely with officials in the Department.

Ms Bateson: Yes. The idea is that the co-design process, which involves a monthly meeting, would use the recommendations in addition to the those that are outstanding from the assessment of the VSS as the starting position and make sure that they are all brought forward.

Mr Wilkinson: I will just add something that relates to what you were saying earlier, Chair. We have a very clear indication of what our budget will be next year. The importance of that is that it adds stability and security, which is precisely what we need to address the recommendations in the report. Over the next year, we want to begin the pilot in consultation with victims and survivors, the victims' forum, the groups that we fund, the Department and the commission and try things out to see if we can come up with a model or models of practice that work better. We do not need to lose any of the funding that we understand we will have over the next 12 months.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Oliver, would it be reasonable to extrapolate from that that you would be happy if that budget remained the same through the whole financial year, rather than putting the emphasis on monitoring rounds to secure additional funding? Is "stability" the buzz word for this financial year?

Mr Wilkinson: Certainly, to address the recommendations — we fully support all the recommendations made in the RSM McClure Watters report; we work closely with them and we think they are taking us in the right direction — and provided we work in the co-design format that the Department is suggesting, in partnership with others, we should be able to provide the stability necessary for tough conversations to take place. If we were in last year's situation, we could not look at the report, because we would not know where we would be from month to month. Now we have the stability that enables us to have those hard conversations.

Mr Lyttle: Thanks for your presentation. You answered many of the questions that I was going to ask. Can you give us a brief insight into the impact that the variable funding arrangements last year had on victims and survivors' experiences of the service?

Ms Bateson: In the last while, I have found that victims like and need certainty, so uncertainty about what services they could have for the year had an impact on a lot of individuals. As the Chair outlined, sending £200 to just under 2,000 people before Christmas and then, three weeks later, sending them another £200 is confusing for individuals. Obviously, it is also not good use of internal resources in the VSS either.

We are also aware of the impact on those who are injured. This year, we applied eligibility criteria of middle- and high-rate DLA so that we would not have to reassess people. Individuals have already gone through a robust assessment, which we know would determine that they have ongoing chronic pain needs. We were aware as well that that left those who were not on DLA and who potentially had chronic pain needs. We addressed that somewhat in December when additional funding came through. Forty individuals in that scenario came forward where we had stopped treatment plans, and we were able to continue those. However, we are aware that there may be others out there who might have ongoing chronic pain needs, and we have been addressing those on a case-by-case basis.

I guess that it is just about the timing and not being able to do that until December or January at the end of the financial year. We are now in a position where all our funding is allocated, but will we spend and draw down the full amount? We are obviously working hard internally to make sure that that is the case, but there will be difficulties because of the timing of the release of funding.

Mr Lyttle: Hopefully, that baseline will remain stable for you throughout the year to allow you to overcome some of those difficulties. I would like to think that the personal caseworker approach would assist with clear communications about eligibility for the programmes as well, and I welcome the pilot of that approach. The Alliance Party proposal during the Haass talks on processes relating to victims and survivors was that there would be an advocate counsellor, so I think that the same principle of one point of contact to navigate what can be pretty complicated procedures at times —

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Are we going to pause here for several party political broadcasts?

Mr Lyttle: No.

I welcome that approach and look forward to hearing more about the outcome. I wish you well. What do you think the two key challenges are for VSS going forward?

Mr Wilkinson: I will mention one to give you time to think, Margaret.

Ms Bateson: That will give me time to think.

Mr Wilkinson: We have to get much better at the whole process of monitoring and evaluating what is happening in our groups and organisations. It is always very difficult in the third sector to get agreement on monitoring and evaluation criteria, and we are working hard with them to try to agree a format where we can come back to you and say, "This is what is being done precisely with the money that has been given to those groups. We can show that they are all operating to this level, and this is the statistical information that shows it." It is not just the statistical information but the effectiveness of the different programmes that they are using. We have no doubt that excellent work is being done out there, and we want to capture it in a way that is useful to all of us. We have not quite got that right. As I said, it is a very difficult thing in the third sector to get right. Over the next year, we intend to come to an agreement with groups that will enable us to do that.

Ms Bateson: I think a second challenge in the year ahead is having a strong baseline budget position and the expectations that that sets in meeting the needs of all individual victims and survivors who come forward to VSS and meeting all the needs of the victim support programme groups. This year and continuing over the last number of months we can see the complexity of the needs. With the expectations and the number of victims coming forward, we know that a baseline budget of £13 million will still mean that we have to make difficult decisions about who may be able to access direct support from us and who we need to refer through other agencies. I think that that is going to be very difficult, because there is potentially a message that we have a sufficient budget now to meet all those needs. We are acutely aware that that is not the case. We are working hard internally to try to maximise what that money can do, and the board will ratify that on 18 March.

Mr Wilkinson: Deputy Chair, may I take the liberty of adding a third?

Mr Lyttle: Yes.

Mr Wilkinson: We need the post of commissioner to be filled as soon as possible. We benefit from having that critical friend watching what we do, commenting on it, and keeping us focused on what we have to do. We have a very good relationship with the commission staff; that could not be better. The sooner that that post is filled, however, the better it will be for all of us. I have come to realise in the past year that there are three parts to this: the service; the commission; and the Department working with all the groups and organisations out there. We are most effective if all three are in place.

Mr Lyttle: That is something that we can take up with the Department immediately after this. I wish you well in all the work. It is hugely important to our community, so thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): I think there is a circle in this: the Department; the commission; yourselves; and the forum. If all were in place, there would be a virtuous circle, as it were.

Ms McGahan: Thank you for your presentation. This might be a minor issue, but your briefing paper deals with VSS call management and client queries and states that the organisation has not used the NI Direct messaging solution since mid-October 2014. Further down that page, under the graph however, it is stated that the system:

Are you using the system or not? If not, why not?

Ms Bateson: There are two reasons why we do not use the system. First, the first feedback from individuals was that they did not like it. NI Direct operators were taking messages and relaying them to the VSS. It served its purpose at the time, because it meant that we were able to at least have messages left and could call the individual back, rather than there being a missed call and an unanswered call.

Secondly, we do not believe we need it. With our current capacity, we are operating well. We have the resource and the system sorted out, albeit that, as with any system, you have your hardware and software failures that you manage on a daily basis. We had a difficulty in January. It came across us quite quickly. You can see that the calls rose from 1,600 in December to 2,500 in January. Our calls increased again in February, when we took just under 3,200 calls — this was a mid-month report — but we maintained that 97% call rate. The point is that, even with increased calls, we are still managing well; we just do not feel that we need a messaging service.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Margaret, you hinted at a change of premises. Perhaps you should brief the Committee on what is happening with that.

Ms Bateson: Last week the Department approved the business case for a change of premises. We will be moving from Millennium House to another city centre location. I am not sure that I should say where, because we still have not signed off with the landlord on the other side. The business case has just been approved. It is another city centre location. There are two reasons why we are moving. First, the obvious one is to save costs and to try to put those into the front-line programmes; and, secondly, the premises are more suitable for the number of staff that we have. We had taken over the Children's Commissioner ground-floor and first-floor premises, but we do not need that amount of space any more.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Where are we on staff? Refresh my memory.

Ms Bateson: We have 26 permanent staff. I see that as our core function staff; that is what we need for our day-to-day operations. We need that to respond to client queries, clients dropping in, payment processing and all your usual governance activities. Once we start going above making developments or improvements, we will need more resource.

With the £1·3 million that came in January, we brought in an additional six temporary staff, one provided by the Commission for Victims and Survivors and the rest through us. Those staff are strengthening and supporting the payments processing unit. We issued another 2,000 letters, which are all going to come back in payment claims, so we strengthened the payments processing unit. We also have a small team of two management information systems officers and two admin officers working for three months on our management information systems. That is a short-term project that we envisage one person being able to maintain and take forward in the longer term.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Did you say that 2,000 people got the 2x£200 cheques? How much did it cost to send the second batch?

Ms Bateson: I do not know what a first-class stamp costs these days.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): It is 65p or something. Wow. So that is way, way over £1,000. Are the 26 permanent staff pretty stable? What sort of churn have you got there?

Ms Bateson: Very little. I think one member of staff has retired in the last seven months. I do not think we have had any other changes.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Is it challenging to be a member of the VSS staff? Particularly over the last year, as we have discussed with the Budget fluctuating, promises being made and then with people not being able to deliver on them, there was clearly a lot of pain and anger amongst your clients. How did the staff deal with that?

Ms Bateson: It is always difficult for staff on the front line to manage that distress and anger, because sometimes the messenger is confused with the message. That has been extremely difficult, but we have the right six people on the front line. They are good at what they do, and they manage it well on a daily basis.

All the changes over the last six or seven months have shown that change brings natural challenge and fear. A number of staff might struggle more than others with those change processes. We have support mechanisms. Each member of staff has a monthly one-to-one supervision with their line manager. An in-house psychologist works with us two days a week. She works mostly with the groups in training and development. She has carried out training for staff on managing client risk, self-stress and self-care and things like that. It is just about trying to put those support mechanisms in place.

In dealing with the pressures, staff are directly involved in our business planning process. We have monthly and quarterly planning meetings with all staff, attended by the chair, representatives from the Department and the CVS in an attempt to help staff to understand where the pressures come from. Each team's pressures are managed in that way.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Do you have to put those processes in place, or do you get support from the Department?

Ms Bateson: I think it is VSS's responsibility to put them in place. I am not saying that I do not get support from the Department, but I have not felt the need to ask it for support in those areas.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Is there not a protocol from the Department? When I was involved in setting up the Victims' Commission, I remember that there were something like three dozen protocols, as well as a financial memorandum and all the rest.

Ms Bateson: We have an MSFM between us.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Is that a management statement and financial memorandum?

Ms Bateson: Yes, but it probably focuses more on accounting officer duties in financial budgetary management and less on managing staff welfare.

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): Members, are we content?

The Chairperson (Mr Nesbitt): OK, Margaret and Oliver, thank you very much indeed.